As you know appventcalendar has caught a lot of eyeballs. I also want my game and my website be concerned just like appventcalendar. Does any developer of you have the same thought?

Or does anyone have any other better idea?

go ahead and create one, no one's stopping you

be aware that there are many such sites right now, and fighting for attention is already quite hard. you need connections and spend some $$ advertising (just like anything) to plow to the front of the pack - and of course a good-looking and well-maintained site to boot. It's a lot of work. if you just "put one out there" and expect that anyone will notice, well, then it's a lot like trying to sell something on the app store..
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Free app sites have already severely damaged the App Store economy, much to our detriment; why would we want to make it worse?

I would not suspect things are quite THAT horrible (such that the existence of free app websites is absolutely ruining an already-messy situation). I guess it has been pretty well-proven that people generally are easier to grab things when they are free (or at least, many folks will wait for a price drop/free promo). I'll maintain that with proper presentation and promotion on the part of the developer and sales folks, you can still generate enough interest to pay a "reasonable" price for something.

If there's a situation where tons of no-name apps come out that look like they are all generally slapped together (which is often the case), I think people can be forgiven for not jumping to scoop them up anymore.
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Its a new market which is quickly changing but there is a direction for

undervaluation of products.

With so much free stuff alot of people are even complaining about .99cent games

like angry bird haloween edition.. it should be free, should be an update, should be up my ass.

Except all of this free which doesnt work anymore the way it did last year when it started.

Possible the developers should make a different stand.. Instead of free promotion one could make a "rise of tge price" promotion..

I had an idea for quite some time that i would love to see the outcry
If a big enough group of developers with high profile enough titles would just set the price higher.. For example instead of .99. Its 9.99 or higher.

The app sotre has one big flaw, thats not bad developers, thoose are everywhere, but cheap customers who want everything but even spit in your face if you charge them .99

Buts its not the fault of the customers, its the fault of the developers who joined the rush for cheaper games. Selling under value.
This is a dangerous circle and i always hope it gets broken by games like infinity blade or different high profile non gameloft titles.

But that lies the problem. Who wants to make a stand for the sake of everyone else? Putting your game at $9.99 will almost guarantee lower revenue (even Gameloft lowered their starting prices to $6.99). The reality is, the app store will continue to morph into its own creature, and regardless of devaluing apps or whatever else happens, there is still plenty of money to be made in the top 500-750 spots at low prices, and even RICHES if you can reach the top 10 for any decent period of time. Sadly, it is what it is at this point.

So now, we can choose to adapt to this new environment and hopefully make money, quit because we think its not fair, or try to stand on principle and make no money (in which case you will likely have no effect -- people will just temporarily complain about your price and then move on to something else). Ultimately, this is a business and many people need to make money to survive.

Take the free campaigns for example. Whether you think it devalues apps or not, we have done it twice with N.Y.Zombies and both times it has increased our sales by 7-800% over the short term, and still by a small % even long term. Its one of the few ways outside of getting featured by Apple that you can guarantee 100's of thousands of people will have eyes on your app.

Same thing will sales. Its now a fact of life in the app store that sales usually = temporarily more money. Everyone, from Gameloft, to EA, to PvZ, etc go on $.99 sales. As much as it might suck to put the game we've been working on for 6+ months on sale for a measly $.99, you almost have to (as no matter what, there will always be a huge portion of people holding out for that sale that you will miss out on if you don't do it).

Anyway, on topic I'm not so sure another free site will be all that great unless it has a specific catch to it.

when I started out on this venture, as many other devs (I'm sure) said to themselves, I did the same "no way in HELL I am every gonna charge a measly .99c for anything I make.. much less give it away for FREE, maybe just lite version if that." Now of course a lot of time has passed and we all know how that goes.

Fact of the matter is the rules are different in here and we must play by the rules. I look at it as mostly "getting your name out there" in the short term, building up a brand and the value therein, and that will definitely lead to something. the mobile market is not going anywhere, it is growing with ridiculous speed by the day (I heard there's something like 50 THOUSAND iPhone sold on a day to day basis?) Even though only a small percentage of those new adopters are going to surf the appstore, that still explains why games like Angry Birds can still move soooo many units all these months later.

Word of mouth, and feature by Apple, are quite powerful things.

The App Store is a different game. Trying to get in and making money is a losing proposition, unless you are just a combination of lucky, genius, and probably already a bit rich. But putting in some stakes for the longer haul is a more sensible notion, and much more likely if you play your cards right

That being said, price low. Go free. Get your app out there, get your name out there. Once people recognize your brand, once (God please you have YOUR OWN STORE in tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people's handsets, then you can start to expect to make a little nice cash. Pricing at premium numbers right now is just gonna make you look out of touch, unless your name rhymes with Smacktivision.

But that lies the problem. Who wants to make a stand for the sake of everyone else? Putting your game at $9.99 will almost guarantee lower revenue (even Gameloft lowered their starting prices to $6.99).

well probably no one will, why should they. it would only work if the top players would do that.. if thoose games everyone wants raise their prices..
not thoose thousands of crap indie games no one is interested into the first place.

the appstore is the way because "we" the developers made it this way.

but the appstore itself shows that it can be different. why are ipad apps in general more expensive than ipad version..

its surely not because a hd version is 2,3,4times the work of the iphone version.. its because the climate on the ipad store front is still well "normal"

one of the biggest selling games in the last months was cut the rope.. a huge sucess that sky rocketed the charts.

it is one of the most polished games i've sen on the idevice.. but why is the ipad version twice as "expensive" as the iphone version?

the art was done once, the code is the same, levels are the same.. the hole content is the same.. so why? there needs to be reason.

whats interesting is the grossing chart not the sale charts.. here in germany modern combat is 26th on the sale charts but place 5 on the grossing chart..
and since money is all mankind cares about the grossing chart is the important one.

so would mc2 sell 7 times more units if they would drop the price to 1 dollar?
i hardly doubt that. maybee it will rise to the top10 of sales.. but that doesnt mean it will earn more money.

Quote:

The reality is, the app store will continue to morph into its own creature, and regardless of devaluing apps or whatever else happens, there is still plenty of money to be made in the top 500-750 spots at low prices, and even RICHES if you can reach the top 10 for any decent period of time. Sadly, it is what it is at this point.

i diasagree, the developers and customers are thoose who form the appstore.. and the only one providing content is the developers..
either you stand for what you are doing or not.. there are a few developers
who never droped the price of their product.. we don't know their numbers
but can they be so bad? would they not droped the price if it was so?
i can only assume.

at the end even apple is rather featuring a game that cost 5 dollars than a game that costs 1.

and sure there is always money to be made.. somewhere somehow..
i don't even want to earn more money.. the money avaiable is limited the market is limited.. but with higher prices for quality, there would be more quality.. of one knows he would never sell for 5 dollar he calculates his project based on 1 dollar etc. its double edged.. price dumping doesnt help anyone. it never did.

Quote:

So now, we can choose to adapt to this new environment and hopefully make money, quit because we think its not fair, or try to stand on principle and make no money (in which case you will likely have no effect -- people will just temporarily complain about your price and then move on to something else). Ultimately, this is a business and many people need to make money to survive.

i would assume possible a single digit of the appstore developers are here to make a living out of the store because for the top500 apps there are some hundred thousands others who are not sold at all..

99% of the appstore is noise created by hobby developer flodding the market with crap. who knows how many diamons are burried under the hundreds of thousands of app which no one every tried to bother with.

Quote:

Take the free campaigns for example. Whether you think it devalues apps or not, we have done it twice with N.Y.Zombies and both times it has increased our sales by 7-800% over the short term, and still by a small % even long term. Its one of the few ways outside of getting featured by Apple that you can guarantee 100's of thousands of people will have eyes on your app.

well percentage means nothing.. if i sell one copy a day and then 8 copies a day i have a short term boost of 800% , so what?

i think the free promotions are in general pretty much useless for most of the apps appearing there.. sure you get a sucess story for one or the other app but they usualy did quite well before anyway.

also all thoose promo sites are just covering a fraction of the actual customers.. most don't frequent either sites like touch arcade, faad or any other.

i think going free is a bad sign one could do.. but this is my personal feeling

Quote:

Same thing will sales. Its now a fact of life in the app store that sales usually = temporarily more money. Everyone, from Gameloft, to EA, to PvZ, etc go on $.99 sales. As much as it might suck to put the game we've been working on for 6+ months on sale for a measly $.99, you almost have to (as no matter what, there will always be a huge portion of people holding out for that sale that you will miss out on if you don't do it).

well like i said earlier a sale doesnt automatically mean more money. and if people are holding out for the next .99$ sale one should clearly state that there will be no sale, no pricut, it is as is.
if there are alot people who are holding out possible something is missing they want to see in the game.. or they are just cheap.

i personaly rather have 1x5$ customer than 5x1$ customers.. because you are engaging differently to an expensive product than a cheap one..

well the appstore is a new and quickly changing market and apples tries alot things to help developers to form it.

Quote:

Anyway, on topic I'm not so sure another free site will be all that great unless it has a specific catch to it.

why not? from your standpoint it helped you. so getting a spot on faad is limited. there are only 365 slots avaiable a year.. so just another site would add a few of thoose slots.

all this started with a novel idea.. and ended up in a pretty mess imho.

at the end i can only conclude.. if you have a great product you neither ned free promotion nor a pubslisher or anyone else.. you can be successfull on your own.. if you product is crap.. no one will help you to sell it.

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